Anonymous Iran

NiteOwl

I'm NiteOwl AKA Josh Shahryar - twitter.com/iran_translator on twitter - and I've been immersed in tweets from Iran for the past several hours. I have tried to be extremely careful in choosing my tweet sources. What I have compiled below is what I can confirm through my reliable twitter sources. Remember, this is all from tweets. (My work is released under Creative Commons (CC). So use it freely and post it wherever you wish to.)

These are the important happenings that I can positively confirm from Tuesday, July 14 .

In Danish: http://tinyurl.com/lo4uqx

In French: http://tr.im/sqRZ

In German: http://tinyurl.com/m8uxw2

In Hebrew: http://tinyurl.com/kpljpr

In Italian: http://tinyurl.com/mv5n4k

In Spanish: http://tinyurl.com/kw5led

In Sweidsh: Green Brief på Svenska


Protests / Unrest

1. Iran’s Ministry of Energy has asked all Iranian citizens to lower their use of electricity in the late hours of the night. Protesters have been using electrical appliances en masse to disrupt the electricity supply in the country. The Ministry has asked for a decreased usage between 8 to 11 PM.

2. On Monday night, the main entrance to the Ministry of Information building in Mashhad was set on fire. It has been reported that this was done in retaliation for Monday’s murder of Mehrdad Heydari - a prominent journalist from Mashhad. Heydari’s death is rumored to be by the hands of security forces.

3. Reports indicate that the security situation in Tabriz is very bad with large numbers of security forces in the area and ongoing arrests. However, there are no reliable reports coming out of Tabriz at this point. It has been reported that Iranian pop idol, Googoosh, will go to the hunger strike in front of the UN on July 22, 2009.

4. It has now been fully confirmed that Hashemi Rafsanjani will in fact lead the Friday Prayer’s in Tehran. We reported yesterday that Mahdi Karoubi, Mohammad Khatami and Mir Hossein Mousavi were also planning on attending. Reports - just coming out of Iran - now indicate that this may NOT be the case. Thus, until further confirmation, please treat their “supposed attendance” with a grain of salt. (Note: There have been times that leaders have indicated that they will attend an event, but have not, so anything is possible in our opinion.)

Opposition

5. Opposition members have started to sue government-owned newspapers for defamation, spreading rumors and slander. Sources claim that Mousavi’s office, as well as Khatami’s offices have sued Reja News, Fars News Agency, Iran Daily and Keyhan Daily. We reported on Green Brief #18-19 that Mousavi was reportedly forming a new political front. This has now been fully confirmed. There are reports out Mousavi has reportedly shunned Khamenei’s attempts at holding emergency talks – none of them could be even partially confirmed.


Government / International

6. The Deputy Speaker of Iran’s Parliament announced today that Iranian President-Select Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be sworn into office on August 2, 2009. Although Ahmadinejad has postponed many of his trips abroad and even within Iran in the past few weeks, it has now been confirmed that he will be traveling to Mashhad on Thursday.


Arrested / Released / Killed

7. It was reported yesterday that Hamshahri Newspaper had fired some of its staff members. We have confirmations today that one of those staff members, Marjan Abdul-Hayan (a technician), has been arrested. Koroush Javan, a photographer for Khorshid Newspaper, has also been arrested. Reports indicate that three of Javan’s roommates were also detained with him.

8. Blogger Mohammad Ismailzadeh has been released on bail after a month in detention. Mojtaba Tehrani has asked his family to post bail of about 150 million tomans (150 million tomans is about $150,000 US dollars.) Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard met with the family of slain protester Sohrab A’rabi to express their condolences.

9. The families of many political prisoners held a press conference today in Tehran. They proclaimed that all their efforts in contacting their loved ones had failed thus far. According to them, Iranian authorities were not responding to any of their inquiries. Tomorrow, families of many detainees will be meeting with a three-member committee set up by the Iranian Judiciary to follow-up on the status of detainees.

10. New reports have emerged that the Iranian government has stored the bodies of hundreds of protesters killed during the unrest in Southwest Tehran - instead of giving them to their loved ones. Norooz - an online Iranian news service - claims that one family was taken to a building and shown pictures of hundreds of dead detainees in order to identify their loved one. It should be noted that the building they were taken to was one that stored frozen fruit. If the above-mentioned claim of “hundreds of bodies” is true, it would lend credibility to the claim that the number of people killed in the post-election unrest is far higher than what has been reported so far. (In the Green Briefs 4 and 5 we speculated that the number of people that had been killed by then was likely over a hundred.)

11. Reports on the death of an 18 year old boy, who had been shot during the protests and was in a coma, emerged today from Shiraz. The slain boy was named Arman Estakhripour. Although reports circulated yesterday that 14 suspected Jondullah Members were to be hung in Zahedan, only 13 were hung today. The fate of the remaining Jondollah Member remains unknown.

12. There are reports spreading online that an Iranian student, identified as Taraneh M., may have been gang-raped by Basiji militiamen while detained in prison. No independent confirmation could be obtained at this point.

13. The US State Department has asked for the immediate release of Kenyan Tajbakhsh, an Iranian-American scholar who has now been in detention for more than a week.


Media

14. It has been reported that IRIB has prepared a “blacklist” of hundreds of names – possibly as high as 1,000 – including politicians, journalists, and other prominent Iranians. They have purportedly handed this list over to all of their TV Stations with strict instructions to NEVER allow those “blacklisted” to appear on any of the government-run stations.


(Still pretty sick so apologies if work's being done late or I cannot respond to messages)

*A hearty thanks to Sahar joon for helping me out with proof-reading and very valuable tips. Also, a BIG THANKS to all the translators who're spending their precious time on getting this to as many people as possible.

Read this if you want to help or get help!

Helpers:


A. You can retweet this link and help others know what is going on in Iran.

B: If you would like to help out with compiling all the news stories from Iran in a geo-spatial context, please request for sub-editorship at #iran.aic - WebIRC - AnonNet - Check out the website for the project at: Iran Map | Iran Map or email me at dbosca@gmail.com.

C. The government in Iran is still increasing internet filtering and throttling in an attempt to silence their people. Anonymous info shows that many in Iran are looking for proxy and Tor information in Tehran and all around the country. Please donate your bandwidth to help bring down the Iran Curtain. Here are links on how to help and get help on this:

English:

Tor Browser Bundle

Tor Browser Bundle

Tor Browser Bundle

Tor and the Iranian Election - Bring down the Iran Curtain | Ian's Brain

Farsi:

Tor Browser Bundle

Tor: آنلاين Tor

[B]Get video torrents and help on Tor here:

Gonzo Times � Torrents List (82 videos)

JudyBee_FL

Thanks again NiteOwl for your invaluable briefing - hope you feel better soon.

Nichol

and well done, thanks again.

Unregistered

Thank you again. Hope quick recovery. You are the voice of people who supposed to not being heard.

Eowyn9

Hi NiteOwl:

I just have one question: by "the security situation in Tabriz is very bad," do you mean:

1) there is a heavy IRG/basij presence, preventing people from protesting;
2) there is a very light IRG/basij presence (i.e. the security situation is bad from the GOVT's perspective)
or
3) There are/have been extensive protests/disruption/chaos involving both sides.

Please clarify as this is really rather confusing! Thanks!

Also, thanks again SO MUCH for the work that you do here and for continuing even when ill. It is so much appreciated by many, many people.

Unregistered

Stay safe and healthy. Iran needs you! Thank you so much.

RichardCranium

thanks Josh

Unregistered

Thank you for what you do Anon.
I also wanted to say my piece because of having been a child who had to leave her country with no say...and what I have been witnessing amongs Iranians today-there is some arguing and critisism going on amongst Iranian mostly abroad, regarding political positions and othr useless topics or beliefs........alll of which frustrates me.. so I would like to underline a few objectives that we shouldn't lose sight off :
Every little thing or big thing, anyone, anywhere, does to keep the iran situation alive COUNTS...regardless of how small or how big; because... the CAUSE will only be lost when it's no longer getting attention. While iranians argue amongs themselves..remember Hamvatanan...what's most important is to be peaceful, unified and focused on "one common goal". Stay peaceful and diligent... It may be that not everyone is fighting side by side with the Freedomfighters.... but .. I have never seen this much unity, hope and emotion ...in any other movement or any other race...on a global level. Caring ...and unity, in any shape or form, is a step closer to Victory...

Thank you for reading my thoughts..

Visionary

Thanks so much for the updates!

Also thanks for the update/clarification about who might be attending the prayers.

Get better soon! I just recently got sick myself (starting to feel a fever today) and I can only imagine how much harder it is for you to do all this now.

Unregistered

NiteOwl,

You can never possible understand the full depth to which we appreciate you!

Friend